208996 2003 AZ84, January 8th 2011

Published on Friday 10 June 2011

For this occultation, the asteroid was predicted to pass in the south of Chile and we observed it anyway, and it was a good choice. See the map on Bruno's page

It was not observed in any other site, so can at best give a minimum diameter estimate for the object.

The occulted star was MV 18.4, and 2003AZ84 an estimated 20.3. Using an exposure time of 5 seconds per frame we could get the occultation, not with a very high signal to noise ratio of course. Here is an animation of the event. It is likely you will have to authorize the page to accept the ActiveX thingy to see the animation. The occulted star is the one in the upper right corner, and while faintly visible, there is a moment where it clearly dissapears.

For this type of observations a larger telescope would be appreciated. Pretty soon I will work full time on the installation of my 90cm telescope.

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